Reviews tagging 'Racism'

Night Film by Marisha Pessl

24 reviews

auntiejamie's review against another edition

dark mysterious slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot

2.0

A cruel book full of Boomer logic and pearl-clutching. Tediously long and overbearing; the story, the places, and it's characters are not nearly as interesting as to justify this toilet paper scroll that is hellbent on telling you just what's wrong with "today's generation."

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Suicide, Terminal illness, Violence, Rape, Transphobia, Death, Body shaming, Child abuse, Fatphobia, Gore, Mental illness, and Racism

takeoutbox's review

medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No

0.25

This book is such trash, never had I read something that fell from a 4 to a 1 within a few pages. It started off kind of interesting with the mixed media...then it resorted to a cartoonish journey of going from A to B to C to D to every other letter.

Also, this book was published in 2013, not 1913. If you need to rely on racist, transphobic and misogynistic tropes for your novel to be quirky, you need to do better.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Racism and Transphobia

solouncapitulomas's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

first of all I have to say it, I fucking love long book but this book DID NOT need to be that long, a solution? removing most of the main and secondary characters, let's be honest ashley and cordova where the best characters and all the additional ones we never saw again.

I was so bored with McGrath's story but I did appreciate the parallels between him and cordova and their daughters, but the other to characters? unbearable, the author could've focused on the lore of cordova and on Ashley (a character like rebecca from daphne du maurier more interesting in death and with the power to eclipse every other character without even trying) instead of fucking introducing two boring people (nora and hopper) with no business being there and maybe if those two stayed like another one of the additional people we met along the way they would've been bearable but no, they had to join the hunt and be useless 

wtv, I finished this book before the end of October and that was that

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Suicide, Death, and Transphobia

Moderate: Racism, Forced institutionalization, and Cancer

Minor: Car accident

kristareads's review against another edition

dark mysterious medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Suicide, Transphobia, Misogyny, and Racism

Moderate: Child death and Sexual assault

Minor: Forced institutionalization, Cancer, Chronic illness, and Fire/Fire injury

judassilver's review against another edition

challenging dark mysterious medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcoholism, Transphobia, Misogyny, Death, Alcohol, and Sexism

Moderate: Animal cruelty, Medical trauma, Injury/Injury detail, Religious bigotry, Cultural appropriation, Ableism, Suicide, Adult/minor relationship, Sexual assault, Racism, Addiction, and Stalking

Minor: Car accident, Forced institutionalization, Cancer, Fire/Fire injury, and Trafficking

kylieqrada's review

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

This book was creepy AF and I liked the themes and the ambiguous ending. I just couldn't get behind some of the language.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Transphobia, and Suicide

Moderate: Racism, Forced institutionalization, and Cancer

Minor: Car accident

cowboyaj's review against another edition

2.0

i'm sorry...but he literally said the chicken in a chinese restaurant was PROBABLY CAT??
man fuck this book. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Suicide, Misogyny, and Terminal illness

Moderate: Racism

Minor: Transphobia

axdixon's review

dark mysterious tense medium-paced

2.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Suicide

Moderate: Homophobia, Racism, Transphobia, Body shaming, Xenophobia, and Misogyny

kermit_the_wrong's review

Disappointingly didn't finish due to the blatant transphobia and racist stereotypes. The story was interesting, but was not as dark or gripping as I had hoped. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Transphobia and Suicide

Moderate: Forced institutionalization, Racism, and Drug use

dbuchheister's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.0

Did I like this book? Not by the end.
Was it racist and transphobic? Yes.
Was it actually creepy or horrifying? Not particularly.
Did I finish it hoping that the end would be good? Yes.
Was it? No. It was a disappointment.
Was there a scene where

a teenager throws herself at a 40-something, mediocre man for no reason

? Yes.
Was it actually a compelling and well put together mystery? I really don't feel that way.
Was it too long? Yes.
Would I recommend this to anyone? Absolutely not.
Do I regret reading this? Kind of. I spent way too much time on something so disappointing.
Were there things that were mildly interesting? Sure.
Did that make up for the rest? Nope.

Do with this information what you will.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Suicide

Moderate: Child death, Racism, Cancer, and Transphobia